Stay on target

What, are you going easy on this one?
Not really, it’s just… I’m trying not to contribute as much as I once did to the overriding critical paradigm that holds junky, pandering pop-culture artifacts aimed mainly at woman to an unreasonably high standard. Yes, this is nothing more than somebody’s beat-off fantasy dressed up trashy rewritten self-insert fan-fiction, but… So it’s a lot of stuff that more or less gets a pass. It’s kinda scummy that we decided that someone making probably too much money off harmlessly dumb books about having the world’s most handsome kinky rich dude fall head-over-heels for you and have ‘unconventional’ relations all because guys were weirded-out that their moms were reading ‘porn’.

Okay, fair enough. Bu-
That having been said… these movies are really, really bad.

So I’ve heard! What is this whole thing about, anyway?
The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy (which originated as Twilight fan-fiction re-written into something “original”) is the story of Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson); an utterly plain, timid, virginal everygirl in trendy Seattle who attracts the romantic attention of Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), a handsome world-famous billionaire playboy who’s deeply-entrenched in the BDSM lifestyle but sucks at relationships because he’s an adopted orphan with super-intense Mommy Issues who hasn’t met the girl who can fix him yet – guess who that is.

“Anastasia Steele?” Seriously?
Yeah… so, in the first one they have a whirlwind romance and break up because his whole dominant trip goes to a way darker place than she’s necessarily down with. Fifty Shades Darker has them getting back together when he helps her with a creepy boss who’s psychotically obsessed with her (and him for some reason). Anna meets the older woman who messed him up (more) as a teenager and understands that he’s partly the way he is because he was an abused orphan adopted into wealth/power. In this one they get married and finish dealing with the bad guy from the last one – who, despite being an unemployed book editor, is somehow super-adept at disguise, stealth break-ins, helicopter sabotage, high tech arson and staging kidnap plots.

…Huh?
Exactly. This is the problem with turning disposable pulp-erotica into a narrative movie. When the only important elements in play are what location and/or mood will these people next make the beast with two backs, you end up with “story” that makes so little sense it borders on the surreal. At one point Christian loads up his private jet with all of Ana’s best friends to go on a surprise vacation to his fabulous mountain house where they can all go on awesome hikes and party in cool clubs. The excuse for this digression? …one of the supporting characters had to propose to his girlfriend. That’s it. BUT!!! It was time for “happy mood” and “fabulous mountain house” line up in the random-fantasy generator, so there we go.

So it basically never had a chance.
Well… there’s the germ of an idea here that this one is now all about Ana finding her own power within their whole weird yet sort-of functional dynamic that you can almost imagine being a better movie. There’s a whole sequence built around arguing over home renovations with a lady architect who keeps flirting with Christian and is (of course) a stunning Italian blonde with a killer figure and how Ana puts her in place so dominantly (but in her own fashion). Christian is so impressed he decides she’s ready to do the driving when their souped-up crazy-expensive car needs to outrun the crazy villain chasing them in the very next scene.

You’re making that up.
I am not, but doesn’t that sound like something that could be fun if it embraced its own identity as campy wish-fulfillment nonsense like the Fast & Furious movies learned to do. But as happened with Twilight, someone bafflingly decided that this foolishness should be taken seriously; which means we end up with the limpest, dullest movie ever to feature this much gratuitous nudity. These movies aren’t the worst thing ever. But if they were I might’ve been more entertained.

Is any of it at least funny?
Well… I don’t want to say that it feels like the franchise is starting to make fun of its own presumed Horny Suburban Soccer Mom target audience, but I will mention that one of the big “sexy” sequences is built around Ana and Christian essentially having a threesome with a pint of Ben & Jerrys.